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Monthly Schedule at Antaiji

The above page has the monthly schedule at Antaiji. They sit for 4 hours of zazen on regular days while for 15 hours on sesshin days. Below is their typical sesshin day. They spend about 9 days every month in sesshin schedule (every month 1st to 5th is sesshin schedule as well as every 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th). You need to pay nothing to stay there. You can choose to donate (I guess most people do). You are only expected to share the work and follow the rules and stick to the schedule there.

I didn't want to write anything further than that in the fear of getting the stick. But since you asked, here is what I feel. I am inspired by the idea of training that hard. i want to train myself that hard. Give me kaosaku (zen beating) now.

Sam,
I'm hoping your remark is tongue-in-cheek but please do understand if I am concerned at the impulsiveness of your statement. "Sitting hard" is not necessarily good training. Quantity of zazen and the imagery of or desire for physical punishment may often mean that we are trying to "gain something" in a practice in which there is nothing to gain. A schedule of this type is intense physically and emotionally. It can be a romantic aspiration - the reality is that it is demanding.

This is precisely what I sensed and you are now in the usual delusion of ordinary people: I wish things be different. Can I remind you that your wife or partner is expecting a baby and THIS is your HARD practice.
In stating what you write, you are no different from somebody wantig a bigger car or a bigger house...
And you are misunderstanding Treeleaf and yhe real nature of true practice. Antaiji is a monastery, one of the hardest one, real life is another monastery, one of the hardest one.

No, it is not a tongue-in-cheek remark. I always viewed meditation as a training thing; something that I use to improve myself. I understand Zen is different and am slowly moving towards it. But if I have to tell you what's honestly in my mind, then these kind of hard sittings are truly inspiring to me. Not that I will be able to endure them but nevertheless inspiring. I agree with you that there might be a gaining idea behind.

I definitely saw some changes in myself since I started Zen. Earlier I used to ask where I am on the path and when I'll become enlightened. Now somehow that has dropped down late. I'm not asking that question to teachers these days. But again these "hard sittings" are inspiring and looks like I feel that I need them

Yes I agree with you Taigu; At this point I'm not able to see my real life as a training ground itself. That's why I wrote in that other thread; I spend lot of time on forums, reading zen books, reading online about zen : all a form of escapism as I see

Escapism is a good one. You could stop this, focus on a couple of daily sittings, and every time you feel surfing the net or daydreaming about hard, intense and pure practice, see it for what it is, another toy in the shop window. Your work, your relationship and your life as is should provide you with 1001 ways to practice without that stink of Zen you are now catching. If you want to study with me, you have to drop books and embrace life.
And don't misunderstand me, for Muho, Antaiji is life as is, and it is great and challenging practice. Muho's "Antaiji" or hard practice could be living in the center of Berlin and commuting everyday...for you, your life is right here and right now.
Stop dreaming and start living.

One more thing: I come from the French countryside, the first time I visited Osaka in 2003 I told my wife: I cannot live here in this crowd and pollution without a tree to be seen...in 2006 I moved in Osaka and learned to practice with these towers of glass and steel as walking mountains and crowds as Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.

Yes, there is a time to sit long, there is a time to sit short ... but most vital is to always sit beyond and right through "long vs short". Sit longly short, and shortly long ... softly hard and hardly soft.

For all folks (who can) or at some times, it is good to sit sometimes behind monastery walls away from the day to day. For all of us, one can sit day to day beyond all thought of "inside vs. out", "in or away" ... knocking down the walls between the ears. Long or short, here or there ... always sit free of "Gaining" mind.

Yes Sam, new baby is the Teacher as much as Hui-neng the Sixth Patriarch!

I sometimes write this on Sesshin and Retreats ...

--------------------------

Let me mention that Taigu and I strongly encourage folks ... if you can find the time ... to go for retreats for a weekend, but better a few days or full Sesshin (even a full week or two if you can) at places, and "traditional" (i.e., very Japanese style) retreats and Sesshin are good experiences. There are several good places to experience that in North America and Europe, and it is good to be in a place where one can rub shoulders with others, living together for a few days. If someone can't go to a bricks and mortar location for such a retreat, we have our Annual "All Online" two-day Retreat too (each December, via live netcast) at Treeleaf Sangha ... traditional (yet "fully online" ... and available to sit any timeless, all year round) ...

... but this is a case where it is actually good to go to a retreat center and practice with folks for a time (if at all possible ... which it ain't for everybody).

Taigu and I strongly encourage folks to go for retreats for intensive sittings, Sesshin, of many days ... even a week or two or longer ... waking early in the morning, sitting late into the evening. All Zen Teachers that I know do. Why? I usually write this:

Now, someone might ask too, "if each moment is all time and space, and Zazen is 'good for nothing', what is the purpose of an intensive Sesshin?" Well, I often say that, sometimes, we need to practice a bit long and hard, morning to night ... sitting and wrestling with 'me, my self and I' ... all to achieve nothing to attain, and taste the good of 'good for nothing'! Going to Retreats, Sesshin and such is a powerful facet of this Practice and not to be missed.

At most Zen Sesshin I know, folks sit many times a day, for 30, 40 or 45 minutes at a time, two or three times back to back, in many sets each day. Most intersperse work periods, lecture periods, eating periods, break periods, sleep period, chanting periods ... but all are one, continuous flowing Zazen in its wider meaning. Most still have lots and lots of sitting on the Zafu sitting (especially in Soto Zen).

It is really not a matter of long or short, start or finish ... and thus it is very good to sometimes sit long. I truly recommend it as integral to this Practice. We sit long and hard sometimes because it truly is not a matter of quantity or the clock or anything to gain!

Strange, huh!?

It is also not a matter of place ... and we should "sit Zazen" too in the hospital bed, death bed, nursery room, grocery line, city bus. Nonetheless, we go to the Retreat at the Zen Center or temple or monastery to sit in a room on a Zafu, precisely because it is not a matter of "where" or "place."

Strange, huh!?

However, if people can't go to a Sesshin because of a physical limitation or other impossibility, that is okay too! If really it is not possible, sit right where one is (or if in that hospital bed, have one's sesshin reclining right there!)

Strange, huh!?

If one sits with greed and desire to attain, than it does not matter if it is 5 seconds or 50 hours or 5000 years ... a waste of time.

If one sits free of greed and desire to attain, than a second is a second of Buddha, 5000 years just 5000 years of Buddha.

This we sit each day ... beyond and right through-and-through the ticking clock. If done with greed, 50 minutes 14 times a day is much too long and much too short AT ONCE! ... what Sawaki Roshi called "sitting with a thief's mind".

Gassho, Jundo

PS - By the way, let me mention that Taigu will be leading a 6-Day Retreat in the Washington D.C. area next August (9th to 14th, 2014) and I hear it will be pretty darn strict. Everyone should plan to attend who can!

I have to agree with Taigu and Yugen Sam. Believe me I have sat some intensive retreats over the last few years and doing so will cure you of any 'romantic aspiration'. This not to say the experience has not been invaluable to my practice they have, but been no more invaluable than last Saturdays Zazenkai with Treeleaf or your practice of sitting each day, for as Jundo says

Yes, there is a time to sit long, there is a time to sit short ... but most vital is to always sit beyond and right through "long vs short". Sit longly short, and shortly long ... softly hard and hardly soft.

And certainly Taigu is right - living your life everday in the world with its multivarious challenges is a great koan. Gassho David

"The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."
- Robert Pirsig

Actually, no more needs to be said.

However, I'd like to add something. I have watched several interviews with Muho and documentaries about Antaiji (however, all in German as Muho is from Germany), it's a pity I missed him when he came near my region for a visit.
I can only say his Zen is not necessarily about "training hard", but it's about life. It's about what everyone makes of it. He teaches more or less the same Zen as Jundo or Taigu - perhaps with a slightly different flavor, but pretty much the same. It's Soto style, and Muho's influence is Kodo Sawaki (among others).
They don't just sit a lot there at Antaiji, but there is a lot of Samu, physical hard work. I daresay Antaiji is mostly for young, fit people.
Samu practice is the same like Zazen.

However, everything is zazen! Waiting at the bus stop is zazen. Going to the supermarket is zazen. S(h)itting on the toilet is zazen. If you practice with the appropriate state of mind that is.
You don't need a mountaintop, you don't need a lonely hut in the woods - you can find "it" wherever you are. Where do you want to go? It's all right there where you are!

Zen is about life, it's not about testing oneself how much one can endure.
Believe me, people at Antaiji are no masochists. They are not there to proof something to themselves.

BTW: I have seen a nice talk by Muho about the Tenzo Kyokun, I could imagine him as a guest speaker at a zazenkai here, but I don't know whether our teachers have contact to him or not.

I have to agree with Taigu and Yugen Sam. Believe me I have sat some intensive retreats over the last few years and doing so will cure you of any 'romantic aspiration'. This not to say the experience has not been invaluable to my practice they have, but been no more invaluable than last Saturdays Zazenkai with Treeleaf or your practice of sitting each day, for as Jundo says

Hey David,

I completely agree with what you write! But also, I very much disagree! (Lovely thing about Zen is one can do that!)

Yes, just sitting in daily life, or our short Saturday Zazenkais are exactly the same as sitting for hours and hours, days and days in a monastery. In fact, sitting a moment of Zazen in one's living room is precisely the same as infinite Buddhas sitting endless Zazen for countless Kalpas of time ... precisely when one drops all thought otherwise. Not a lick of difference. No need to travel to a monastery or Tibet or Japan ... for there is truly no place in need or possibility of going. Truly so. I am not kidding.

On the other hand, they are very different ... much as climbing Mt. Everest is not the same as climbing a step stool in one's kitchen. There is a time when long and hard Practice has it's place, beating the selfish "me myself and i" into submission. One sits hours upon hours precisely because the self does not want to do so ... one cleans endless temple toilets and sweats in the fields because the self would rather be sitting watching reruns on the sofa. Different medicines for different patients and needs and times, and there is a time for many (maybe most) of us to spend long and hard hours struggling to attain the fact that ... there is nothing more in need of attaining.

So, I agree with your totally ... except that you are plain wrong.

By the way, I asked Muho to lead a guest Zazenkai here and offer a little talk. He seemed open to it. I will use this thread as reason to contact him and ask if he is still willing.

This not to say the experience has not been invaluable to my practice they have, but been no more invaluable than last Saturdays Zazenkai with Treeleaf or your practice of sitting each day

Now you only highlighted " ...no more invaluable than last Saturdays Zazenkai with Treeleaf or your practice of sitting each day" And if this is all I said then I would have been equating the two experiences in the way you suggest. But if you take the whole sentence you see what I what I meant was "both are as invaluable to my practice" There is a distinction I hope you agree!!

So in your above post I agree with you & I agree with you

Indeed when you say

On the other hand, they are very different ... much as climbing Mt. Everest is not the same as climbing a step stool in one's kitchen. There is a time when long and hard Practice has it's place, beating the selfish "me myself and i" into submission. One sits hours upon hours precisely because the self does not want to do so ... one cleans endless temple toilets and sweats in the fields because the self would rather be sitting watching reruns on the sofa.

It is much the same as I posted when I came back from Kanshoji, i.e:

For me it was not about whether the schedule was hard or long or early or late. To be honest if you want a schedule that in extremis then one can enrol in a boot camp or military training or even prison. So I do not think for me, although the time was hard, my time was not about hardship. It was more an opportunity to understand my self in a certain way. It was a time of choice and choosing flight or fight. What I mean is this, when the schedule dictates then one has a choice: the mental dialogue is “ this is not for me”; “or this is rubbish”; “why should I have to do this – this is not Zen; “How can I get out of this” It is only in such situation when our freedom to act ‘autonomously’, so to speak, is limited that we notice this kind of inner dialogue. ... To let such a flow a movement teach you the practice of forgetting the self or dropping of the ego and expand and merge into the universal self. It is a constant choice of indulging the ego or letting go, and in such a practice the choice is thrown into stark relief; that is an awareness of prominence caused by contrast. So for me I did find freedom in the form; find an inner resource to accept and see ‘as it is’; dropping the mind and doing so be free.

One more thing: I come from the French countryside, the first time I visited Osaka in 2003 I told my wife: I cannot live here in this crowd and pollution without a tree to be seen...in 2006 I moved in Osaka and learned to practice with these towers of glass and steel as walking mountains and crowds as Bodhisattvas and Buddhas.

Sam, you seem to have the impression there's something wrong with you.

Is there actually something wrong with you? Or is there just dissonance between who you think you should be and how you actually feel? Maybe the dissonance, not you, is the problem.

Gassho,

Mc.

This is true. Not a thing to change or which can be changed.

Nonetheless, one seeks to do better each moment, changing what needs to be changed forsaking greed anger and ignorance.

Buddha seeking more and more each step to better embody Buddha. Such is not an either/or proposition!

Saying “we are already Buddha” is not enough if we don’t realize that, act like so!

Simple, exaggerated example …

Perhaps a fellow sits down to Zazen for the first time who is a violent man, a thief and alcoholic. He hears that “all is Buddha just as it is“, so thinks that Zen practice means “all is a jewel just as it is, so thus maybe I can simply stay that way, just drink and beat my wife and rob strangers“. Well, no, because while a thief and wife-beater is just that … a thief and wife-beater, yet a Buddha nonetheless … still, someone filled with such anger and greed and empty holes to fill in their psyche is not really “at peace with how things are” (or he would not beat and steal and need to self-medicate). In other words, he takes and craves and acts out anger and frustration because he does not truly understand “peace with this life as it is” … because if he did, he would not need to be those violent, punishing ways.

If the angry, violent fellow truly knew “completeness“, truly had “no hole in need of filling“, “nothing lacking” everything “complete just as it is” … well, he simply would not have need to do violence, steal and take drugs to cover his inner pain.

You see … kind of a non-self-fulfilling Catch-22.

Thus, our “goalless sitting” in Zazen is –not– merely sitting on our butts, self-satisfied, feeling that we “just have to sit here and we are Buddha“. Far from it. It is, instead, to-the-marrow dropping of all need and lack. That is very different. Someone’s “just sitting around” doing nothing, going no where, complacent or resigned, giving up, killing time, is not in any way the same as “Just Sitting” practice wherein nothing need be done, with no where that we can go or need go. For all is faced ‘head on’ and energetically as already whole and complete … even while we realize that the choices we make in life have consequences, that how we choose to walk the walk in this life, and the directions we choose to go, do make a difference!

Rev. Mujo, the German born Abbot of Antaiji here in Japan, confirmed with me today that he will come to lead a Zazenkai and offer a talk. However, it will need to be sometime after Rohatsu Sesshin in December.

I look forward to welcoming him, and maybe he can talk about some of this.

Rev. Mujo, the German born Abbot of Antaiji here in Japan, confirmed with me today that he will come to lead a Zazenkai and offer a talk. However, it will need to be sometime after Rohatsu Sesshin in December.

I look forward to welcoming him, and maybe he can talk about some of this.

I just want to add that we all do this. I do this kind of thing all the time. Envisioning some better/different/more pure life or whatever. And if there are people who tell you they don't do this, I'd say they're not being very honest. We do this countless times in countless different ways, every day. It's not just about wanting to sit in some great place to make us great practicers - we do this with the eggs we cook, with the jog we take, with the conversations with our spouse or friend or whatever. Annoyed at the way someone cuts us off, or doesn't hold the door open, or talks loudly on their phone in a public place, or whatever. You know? Or we want to be better at a thing and that begins to dominate, not actually getting better, but wanting to, wishing to be. It's catching our little want for things to be better or different that is the key, and just accepting that, well, maybe it'll happen and maybe not, but "wanting" won't help because that's just wishing for things to be different.

In any case, I just want to say not only that I sympathize, but that I empathize - I'm with you. I do this all the time. Maybe not in the exact same way, but I do it nonetheless, and things get a little better when I recognize I'm doing it, in sitting or in "life" or wherever, because then we see our junk for a minute, and we see that we're not our junk, and we're just right here (honestly, I hate to end this with a pat "right here" thing because so often I'm not, so often slipping up, messing up, distracted, pointedly distracting myself, dreaming some dream and not even realizing it, so I'll end it here).

Rev. Mujo, the German born Abbot of Antaiji here in Japan, confirmed with me today that he will come to lead a Zazenkai and offer a talk. However, it will need to be sometime after Rohatsu Sesshin in December.

I look forward to welcoming him, and maybe he can talk about some of this.

I just want to add that we all do this. I do this kind of thing all the time. Envisioning some better/different/more pure life or whatever. And if there are people who tell you they don't do this, I'd say they're not being very honest. We do this countless times in countless different ways, every day. It's not just about wanting to sit in some great place to make us great practicers - we do this with the eggs we cook, with the jog we take, with the conversations with our spouse or friend or whatever. Annoyed at the way someone cuts us off, or doesn't hold the door open, or talks loudly on their phone in a public place, or whatever. You know? Or we want to be better at a thing and that begins to dominate, not actually getting better, but wanting to, wishing to be. It's catching our little want for things to be better or different that is the key, and just accepting that, well, maybe it'll happen and maybe not, but "wanting" won't help because that's just wishing for things to be different.

In any case, I just want to say not only that I sympathize, but that I empathize - I'm with you. I do this all the time. Maybe not in the exact same way, but I do it nonetheless, and things get a little better when I recognize I'm doing it, in sitting or in "life" or wherever, because then we see our junk for a minute, and we see that we're not our junk, and we're just right here (honestly, I hate to end this with a pat "right here" thing because so often I'm not, so often slipping up, messing up, distracted, pointedly distracting myself, dreaming some dream and not even realizing it, so I'll end it here).

Rev. Mujo, the German born Abbot of Antaiji here in Japan, confirmed with me today that he will come to lead a Zazenkai and offer a talk. However, it will need to be sometime after Rohatsu Sesshin in December.

I look forward to welcoming him, and maybe he can talk about some of this.

Gassho, J

Yes, this is wonderful! Count me in.

Gassho
Shingen

RINDO SHINGEN
倫道 真現

As a trainee priest, please take any commentary by me on matters of the Dharma with a pinch of salt.

The above page has the monthly schedule at Antaiji. They sit for 4 hours of zazen on regular days while for 15 hours on sesshin days. Below is their typical sesshin day. They spend about 9 days every month in sesshin schedule (every month 1st to 5th is sesshin schedule as well as every 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th). You need to pay nothing to stay there. You can choose to donate (I guess most people do). You are only expected to share the work and follow the rules and stick to the schedule there.

4am to 9am

Zazen

9am

Breakfast

10am to 3pm

Zazen

3pm

Lunch

4pm to 9pm

Zazen

9pm

Lights out

Gassho,
Sam

Adding and extra idea: I make my daily schedule a little as the one of Antaiji but with my own rotuine:

Is like: 6-6:20 AM Zazen 6:30-7:00 Tai Chi and some workout 7:10-8:00 Mindful Shower and breakfast...and so on, for example at lunch time I have 5 or 10 min zazen before it an the day goes by, with my usual daily stuff, just putting sitting zazen everywhere I can and tons of insta zazen.

And by doing this, my life it self a great field of practice and I transform it into my own personal Temple which follows me everywhere I go.

Adding and extra idea: I make my daily schedule a little as the one of Antaiji but with my own rotuine:

Is like: 6-6:20 AM Zazen 6:30-7:00 Tai Chi and some workout 7:10-8:00 Mindful Shower and breakfast...and so on, for example at lunch time I have 5 or 10 min zazen before it an the day goes by, with my usual daily stuff, just putting sitting zazen everywhere I can and tons of insta zazen.

And by doing this, my life it self a great field of practice and I transform it into my own personal Temple which follows me everywhere I go.

Hope it is useful to you.

kb

Gassho

KB, I have never thought of doing such a schedule, but I like the idea very much. For me, it could even be flexible, but just a way to be more mindful of how we spend our time.